Rohit Pawar leads protest as Kothrud police decline to book MLA Gaikwad

Pune's Kothrud police station saw a commotion on Wednesday as Kolhapur-based publisher Prashant Ambi and Nationalist Congress Party MLA Rohit Pawar arrived demanding that a case be registered against Buldhana Shiv Sena MLA Sanjay Gaikwad and that he be arrested.

Pawar, along with Ambi's wife Aarti Ambi, staged a two-hour sit-in at the police station. "If Pune police can deliver justice, then we too deserve justice," Pawar said, taking an aggressive stance.

Gaikwad is accused of abusing Prashant Ambi. Ambi had earlier filed a complaint against Gaikwad with Kolhapur police, alleging that Gaikwad used obscene language against his mother and sister over the phone and threatened to kill him. Ambi's wife and mother demanded that a case be registered against Gaikwad the same way one was registered against Santosh Pandit.

In a separate complaint related to the same matter, Sonali Trimbak Kamble filed an application with Kothrud police on September 5. The complaint claimed that an alleged audio clip circulating on social media contained a conversation between Gaikwad and Ambi, in which, besides obscene abuse, there were threats to barge into the house and attack him, to cut off his tongue and to kill him. The complaint sought registration of a cognisable offence, saying an elected representative had used such language.

Kothrud police had earlier acted swiftly and registered a case against Santosh Pandit over remarks about Chandrakant Patil. Prashant Ambi demanded similarly swift action against Gaikwad. Rohit Pawar also pressed for a case to be registered so that the Ambi family gets justice.

However, Deputy Commissioner of Police Sagar Kawade clarified that action was already under way in the same case involving Prashant Ambi, with the matter registered at Kolhapur's Rajarampuri police station, and that a second case over the same incident could not be registered in Pune. On the action taken against Santosh Pandit, Kawade said Pandit's arrest was lawful and had been upheld by the court, that a thorough investigation had been carried out over five days, and that Pandit was cooperating with the probe.

"Prashant Ambi's wife Aarti Ambi had come to file a complaint regarding what happened with Prashant Ambi. A non-cognisable case has already been registered in this regard at Kolhapur's Rajarampuri police station. The court has ordered an investigation in this case and the probe is under way. Ambi has therefore been told that a case cannot be registered at Kothrud police station. He was informed of this because the same incident cannot be investigated in two places," said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone III) Sagar Kawade.